I am really in love with Duel Spec. Frankly I wish I could Tri Spec. That said, I feel like super man. All I need is 5 seconds and a phone booth, and I can become a completely different person.
So I was in 25man Nax over the weekend. It was great. I was part time off tank, part time DPS depending on what was needed at the time. We did most of military, and all of plague. I really enjoyed myself. I was by no means topping the DPS meters, but on Heigan and Loatheb it felt really good to be productive instead of a well meaning offtank who cant really help much.
So how did I do? So/So. I was in with a pretty good group. I was pulling about 2.2K, but most everyone around me was pulling closer to or over 3. I was brought in though to tank. My DPSing was just a bonus. As a tank I felt I was really competitive with the other two tanks present.
I’m not sure how much more to say then that. I did end up breaking down and buying the [Runeblade of Demonstrable Power] off the Knights of the Ebon Blade. Its suiting me well for the moment. In another 3 or 4 days I should be able to replace it with the epic from the Argent Tournament.
Light be With You,
~Bloodgarde
So how about a little more about my adventure in the realm of DPS?
I replaced my tanking cloak (with this) and neck (with this) last night, and finished getting some basic enchants put on my items. I don’t want to pay for the big big budget stuff until I have an Epic I will keep for a while. In all though, I have one tanking ring left. I have DPS enchants on all my gear, and the only gem I am missing is my meta. Not to bad. I am now sitting at about 3000 attack power; I don’t know my other stats off the top of my head. I would guess they are mostly the same.
So last night I ventured into Heroic Utgarde Keep with a team from my guild. Our Bear tanked, we had a shaman healer, a BM hunter, and an affliction lock for DPS; as well as myself of course.
As soon as we walked in the door, I proceeded to rip agg off the bear on the very first pull and DIE painfully while our healer laughed at me. After they cut down the mobs, and got me back on my feet we proceeded to pull number two... where I did the exact same thing.
At this point I started thinking about what I was doing. As a tank, as soon as I make the pull I drop my AoE in order to make sure everything is collected. As DPS I found I was doing something like this....
1) Bear Pulls
2) Bear starts doing whatever it is bears do.
3) I run in and drop Consecration
4) I pop divine storm
5) Everything but the bear’s main target turns to me and rips me to shreds while the healer laughs and makes jokes about how fast I drop.
So I changed up my skill order. I made sure to check on the first kill target by asking on vent (sometimes we mark, sometimes we don’t), and I started to wait an extra 3 or 4 seconds before joining the melee. It went something like this...
1) Bear Pulls
2) Bear starts doing whatever it is bears do.
3) Bear continues doing whatever it is bears do.
4) I run in, and cast Judgement on the first kill target.
5) Cast Exorcism on the first kill target
6) Cast Crusader Strike on the first kill target
7) Consecrate
8) Divine Storm
9) Start playing "Wack-a-Mole" with my cooldowns
10) Own face
So this pattern worked pretty good. I worked the guilds somewhat undergeared offtank (aka The Bear) to the max, tried to keep one eye on omen and one on my cooldowns, and was generally more carefully with my AoEs. The instance proceeded pretty well for a while... Then something else happened...
Our Hunter... pulled agg. My tank reflexes kicked in immediately, and before I even thought about it I was pressing “1,” aka Hand of Reckoning. Well... the bear saw the wayward mob, saw it turn around and start coming back, and assumed the hunter had used feign death. Well needless to say, I quickly found myself taking my third dirt nap. This time however I did find it amusing.
The same exact thing happened one more time before we reached Ingvar. So for those keeping count, that’s 4 deaths to me for the run... all four basically self inflicted. The warlock also died once. No one was quite sure why, but these things happen. All in all not a bad run though.
So final outcome? Ingvar dropped the epic bow... “This is not the epic you’re looking for.... move along.” It got sharded. I put out a very respectable 1950 DPS for the instance coming in second to the hunter at nearly 2100. To be fair to our warlock, he can blow both of us out of the water, but we where killing things so fast he could never get all his DOTs up. Repair cost, 16g. I’m not complaining. 4 deaths in my Prot set would run me close to is not over 40 easy.
In all I was pretty happy; I went in hoping I would at least beat The Bear. I came out number two with what I consider to be a very respectable DPS for someone who has been ret for 3 days.
I’m looking forward to giving it another go tonight. Ingvar has a Belt and Legs that I want. I also installed all my glyphs last night... AFTER the run... and I should be getting my meta installed today, so I want to try those out as well.
So that’s all I have for now. For the Light
~Bloodgarde
I replaced my tanking cloak (with this) and neck (with this) last night, and finished getting some basic enchants put on my items. I don’t want to pay for the big big budget stuff until I have an Epic I will keep for a while. In all though, I have one tanking ring left. I have DPS enchants on all my gear, and the only gem I am missing is my meta. Not to bad. I am now sitting at about 3000 attack power; I don’t know my other stats off the top of my head. I would guess they are mostly the same.
So last night I ventured into Heroic Utgarde Keep with a team from my guild. Our Bear tanked, we had a shaman healer, a BM hunter, and an affliction lock for DPS; as well as myself of course.
As soon as we walked in the door, I proceeded to rip agg off the bear on the very first pull and DIE painfully while our healer laughed at me. After they cut down the mobs, and got me back on my feet we proceeded to pull number two... where I did the exact same thing.
At this point I started thinking about what I was doing. As a tank, as soon as I make the pull I drop my AoE in order to make sure everything is collected. As DPS I found I was doing something like this....
1) Bear Pulls
2) Bear starts doing whatever it is bears do.
3) I run in and drop Consecration
4) I pop divine storm
5) Everything but the bear’s main target turns to me and rips me to shreds while the healer laughs and makes jokes about how fast I drop.
So I changed up my skill order. I made sure to check on the first kill target by asking on vent (sometimes we mark, sometimes we don’t), and I started to wait an extra 3 or 4 seconds before joining the melee. It went something like this...
1) Bear Pulls
2) Bear starts doing whatever it is bears do.
3) Bear continues doing whatever it is bears do.
4) I run in, and cast Judgement on the first kill target.
5) Cast Exorcism on the first kill target
6) Cast Crusader Strike on the first kill target
7) Consecrate
8) Divine Storm
9) Start playing "Wack-a-Mole" with my cooldowns
10) Own face
So this pattern worked pretty good. I worked the guilds somewhat undergeared offtank (aka The Bear) to the max, tried to keep one eye on omen and one on my cooldowns, and was generally more carefully with my AoEs. The instance proceeded pretty well for a while... Then something else happened...
Our Hunter... pulled agg. My tank reflexes kicked in immediately, and before I even thought about it I was pressing “1,” aka Hand of Reckoning. Well... the bear saw the wayward mob, saw it turn around and start coming back, and assumed the hunter had used feign death. Well needless to say, I quickly found myself taking my third dirt nap. This time however I did find it amusing.
The same exact thing happened one more time before we reached Ingvar. So for those keeping count, that’s 4 deaths to me for the run... all four basically self inflicted. The warlock also died once. No one was quite sure why, but these things happen. All in all not a bad run though.
So final outcome? Ingvar dropped the epic bow... “This is not the epic you’re looking for.... move along.” It got sharded. I put out a very respectable 1950 DPS for the instance coming in second to the hunter at nearly 2100. To be fair to our warlock, he can blow both of us out of the water, but we where killing things so fast he could never get all his DOTs up. Repair cost, 16g. I’m not complaining. 4 deaths in my Prot set would run me close to is not over 40 easy.
In all I was pretty happy; I went in hoping I would at least beat The Bear. I came out number two with what I consider to be a very respectable DPS for someone who has been ret for 3 days.
I’m looking forward to giving it another go tonight. Ingvar has a Belt and Legs that I want. I also installed all my glyphs last night... AFTER the run... and I should be getting my meta installed today, so I want to try those out as well.
So that’s all I have for now. For the Light
~Bloodgarde
So, Patch 3.1 hit this week, the servers are not sure wither to be broken or not, and we have new content to explore. I would give you a complete review of the changes, however that has been covered by everyone else in the blog-o-sphere.
So I did something that surprised my guild this week. As soon as my server came up, I made my way to Ironforge to duel-spec Ret and Prot.
Now I have a full Prot set already. I have tanked in both Nax 10 and 25 thought I have never completed either. I have tanked OS 10 and 25 and have kills in both. In my tanking kit I have just shy of 30k health 30k armor, defense cap. I’m not the best geared tank on the server, but I hold my own just fine.
Likewise I have a full set of Holy Gear. I’m sitting at about 1600SP and 35% crit with no enchants. The set isn’t quite as nice as my Prot gear, but it more then gets the job done. I have a few more epics to pick up, and plan to start working on getting it enchanted in the near future.
So when 3.1 hit what did my Ret set look like? Well... does the Helm of the headless horsemen count as a set? Well then I didn’t have one. As I said in my introduction post, I have no experience with Ret. This resulted in surprise for several of my guild members when I picked it up as my offspec.
Now I don’t want to give anyone the idea that I have converted. I will be offspecing Holy at some point down the road. This however gave me a prime opportunity to experiment in depth without giving up my ability to be the on call main tank for my guild.
So I set up a probably poor inferior talent build and off I went. My level 75 warrior had a full set of savage saronite banked that he not so happily donated to the cause. He was also able to toss in a level 72 blue 2H Axe without to much trouble. Of course upon receiving the axe my paladin said “What am I suppose to do with this?” and headed off to begin leveling the new weapon.
Last night I visited all my favorite quartermasters. I was able to collect a epic chest from the Argent Crusade, as well as epic leather boots. The Sons of Hodir where kind enough to provide me with a nice rare belt and shoulder upgrade as well as a glyph for said shoulders. The Knights of the Ebon Blade let me purchases a nice head glyph. I was also eyeing a nice 2H sword there, but decided to hold off on that for now. Finally the Wyrmrest Accord had nice epic pants for sale when I dropped by. I quickly snatched these up.
My warrior today was able to craft me an Epic helm and a rare bracer upgrade. Finally using jewelcrafting, I pulled together 2 nice trinkets and a ring. For now I am going to continue using my old tanking gloves. They are better then anything I can buy or make at the moment and I have a cloak, a neck and a ring I will be replacing in the near future with crafted epics and rares. I am also lucky enough to have an enchanter in my guild that is supplying me with all my attack power and crit needs.
So as of this posting I am sitting at 21.5% crit, 5.5% hit, 4.5% haste, and 3300 attack power self buffed. Rearmed, I headed off to the target dummies in Ironforge. I quickly found myself putting out somewhere in the 1400 DPS range. Kind of low, but respectable considering I had done all this in two days. I also believe my addon is lying to me. Later, without any changes in rotation, gear or talents, I was killing fire dudes behind the Sons of Hodir area (for epic cloak mats) in about 5 global cooldowns. That’s about 12000 hit points in 7.5 seconds putting me closer to 1600 DPS.
I am really looking forward to seeing my performance after my last four gear upgrades. O yes, my weapon. I will be going after the 2H Sword from the Argent Tournament. Im about 7 days away currently (I think), it might be 9.
So yes, in close, I will keep you apprised as I adventure into the realm of Ret. It should be an interesting adventure.
May the Light Bless You,
~Bloodgarde
P.S. I will not be posting my starting gear list. It is heavily reliant on Jewelcrafting and Rep, and isn’t practical for a "new" 80.
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